


we were on one endless road (but i had a wandering heart)

by outruntheavalanche



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Aging, Angst, Difficult choices, Don't copy to another site, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, Gen, J.J. and Spencer Deserve Better Too, Post-Season/Series 14, this is an unbeta'd mess, will deserves better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 00:56:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19937377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/pseuds/outruntheavalanche
Summary: “What are youdoing?” she hisses at her reflection.Unsurprisingly, there’s no answer back.





	we were on one endless road (but i had a wandering heart)

**Author's Note:**

> **Additional Warning(s):** This isn't technically Jareid, nor is it technically one-sided. I guess you could call it unacted upon feelings.
> 
> Look, I’m sorry but I’m actually not sorry. I love J.J. and Will and the Jareid in S14 felt like it came so out of left field and I don't want it. Everyone involved deserves better than what the writers seem primed to give them. If they kill Will or make him a "bad guy" just to force Jareid I'm challenging Erica Messer to a duel. 
> 
> I don’t know how you’d phonetically spell out J.J.’s nickname so I just went with what made sense.
> 
> Title from "Want you Back," by Haim.

Jennifer stares at her reflection in the mirror and tries to quell the butterflies currently wreaking havoc in her stomach. When she presses a hand over her belly, she swears she can feel them fluttering under her equally tremulous palm. 

She can’t remember the last time she felt so _nervous_. It might have been—well, it _was_ her first real date with Will. He’d stopped by her hotel room the night before the team rolled out of New Orleans, had taken her out to a dance club. They downed cheap tequila like it was going out of style and Jennifer had danced until her shoes fell apart. He woke her up the next morning with a phone call and the honeyed drawl of his voice had chased her hangover away.

Jennifer realizes she’s smiling when she notices her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Then she’s immediately reminded of what she’s about to do and the smile fades. 

She reaches up and tugs at a strand of blond hair, twisting it and twisting it around her finger until it cuts off the circulation and her finger goes numb and tingly. 

Jennifer huffs out a sigh, her bangs floating off her forehead before settling back down.

She could list the pros and cons in her head and go over them until she screams. She could try and put herself in someone else’s shoes, Will’s maybe. Or Henry’s. Henry is old enough now that he’d notice if something wasn’t right. If she didn’t seem like her usual self.

Jennifer glances down at her hands, at the rings on her fingers, symbols of her commitment to Will and to their boys. To their family. 

She reaches up and touches a fingertip to the chain Spencer gave her for Christmas—she doesn’t even remember which Christmas, it could have been a year ago or two years or ten. It feels like she’s been wearing it for as long as she can remember.

Spencer. The reason for the butterflies in her stomach and the doubt like a heavy, damp blanket over her shoulders. 

**Meet me, we need to talk. Room #163.**

There’s an address for a hotel and the name he’s staying under, as if he expects her to come to him, no second thoughts. 

But Jennifer knows if she goes to Spencer there won’t be any talking. She’ll give in to her weakness and she’ll fuck him. She’ll cross the line she told herself she’d never ever cross, she’ll throw her entire life away to be that starry-eyed girl with a crush again. 

Jennifer sighs again. There’s gray in her hair and fine webbing at the corners of her eyes. Her stomach isn’t as flat and tight as it used to be. When Will kisses her, when they make love it doesn’t feel like it used to. She almost misses the thrill of secrecy that sizzled between them, before she admitted to the team that she was seeing Will. Now, it feels _familiar_ , well-worn and comfortable. 

Now, Jennifer just feels old. 

She gazes back at her sallow reflection in the mirror, tracing her finger over the chain Spencer gave her. 

Her phone buzzes next to her on the edge of the sink. When she glances down at it, a text bubble pops up. Of course it’s Spencer.

**Where are you? Are you coming?**

Jennifer picks up the phone and taps at the screen, fingers flying over the keypad as she types out a message. 

**Yeah Spence I’m on m—**

She stops, lowering the phone. 

“What are you _doing_?” she hisses at her reflection. 

Unsurprisingly, there’s no answer back.

Jennifer sets the phone back down with a thump. Her reflection stares back at her, blue eyes coolly judgmental. 

She still loves Will. She loves the life they share with Henry and Michael. 

Can she really throw that all away? 

Jennifer looks down at her unfinished message and backspaces, before typing out a new one.

**I’m not coming.**

Spencer’s reply pops up almost immediately.

**Why not? Everything okay?**

Jennifer sighs and texts back: **Yeah Spence, everything is okay. But I can’t come see you.**

**Are you having second thoughts?** he responds.

Jennifer feels her eyes sting with tears but she quickly blinks them away. **I’m sorry. I can’t hurt Will.**

She doesn’t add _I love him_. She’s not _that_ cruel. 

Jennifer hits send and waits. He doesn’t reply.

*** 

Jennifer’s sitting on the bed, staring at her phone when Will slips into the bedroom and closes the door lightly behind him. He seems startled to find that she’s still awake, his eyes widening almost comically when he sees her. 

“Hey, thought you went to sleep,” he says, ambling over and toeing off his shoes at the side of the bed. 

Jennifer glances over at him, flashing him a shallow smile before looking back down at her phone. She sets it on the nightstand beside the bed. “I couldn’t get to sleep,” she says, joining Will under the covers. She reaches out and snaps off the light. 

Will curls himself around her, like he always does, nuzzling against her neck. “Mm. Jaydge, where’d your necklace go?” he murmurs, wrapping an arm around her hip.

Jennifer reaches down and pulls Will’s arm more securely around her. “One of the links broke. Gonna have to send it back,” she mumbles.

“ ’s a shame,” he says, giving her a gentle kiss behind the ear. “Always thought it looked real pretty on you.” 

Jennifer turns in Will’s arms until she’s facing him. “Will,” she starts, wrapping her hand around his, “I…I…”

But Jennifer can’t get the words out from her brain to her tongue. She can’t bring herself to tell Will what she almost did earlier that night. 

Will goes still beside her. “It’s okay, Jaydge,” he says.

“You don’t know what I was gonna say,” Jennifer says. 

“It’s okay,” he says again, and she feels his mouth moving in her hair. His warm breath skitters over her bare neck. “I love you, Jennifer.”

Jennifer blinks back a sudden onslaught of tears. She laces her fingers with Will’s, squeezing tightly, so tight she thinks her knuckles will burst. 

“You—you don’t even know what I was gonna say,” she echoes, lifting his hand and kissing his knuckles lightly.

“I don’t need to know,” he says, and in that moment Jennifer realizes he _does_ know. Has probably known for some time that she’s strayed, at least in her mind and in her heart. Will presses a warm, fierce kiss against her temple. 

“I love you, Will,” Jennifer whispers against his knuckles. 

Will squeezes back on her hand. “Go to sleep, Jaydge. Everything’ll look different in the morning light. And I’ll be right here when you wake. Whatever it is, we'll figure it out _together_. But first, sleep.”

Will hadn’t lost faith in her. If he’d felt hurt and betrayed, he’d forgiven her before she’d even had a chance to ask for it. Maybe, in time, Jennifer would be able to forgive herself for what she almost did. Maybe she’d forgive herself for letting her heart wander. 

Jennifer closes her eyes and drifts to sleep, wrapped up in Will and his fierce, unshakeable love.


End file.
